


Pillow Talking

by queenaveline



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, fluff af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:34:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenaveline/pseuds/queenaveline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen and Valerie discuss the other partners they've each had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Talking

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even going to lie, this is just straight up fluff. Enjoy!

The distant sound of crickets filtered in through the hole in Cullen’s roof, the slightest summer breeze coming with it. The couple in bed welcomed it, kicking the sheets down to their ankles and letting the other’s warmth chase the goosebumps from their skin. A leg flung over his, an arm draped over her hip, an elbow resting on his chest, sweet satisfied smiles and low chuckles were the mood of the night, with the music of the insects playing as its soundtrack.

“Valerie, you should know better than to lie to me.”

“I swear! Cassandra absolutely _adores_ them. Ask Varric, if you need to.”

“Please, he’d back you up whether it was true or not.”

“You can’t ask her about this. Or tell anyone. As a friend I am required to keep this, her deepest, darkest secret.”

Cullen rolled his eyes in mock objection, but couldn’t keep up the act much longer than that, for Valerie’s pretend anger was beginning to crack as well. She finally broke down and smiled, running a hand over his chest.

“The best part is, they’re actually _so bad._ Dorian and I tracked one down in Redcliffe, and _Maker_ , I wasn’t able to look at Varric the whole trip back here.”

“Is that so?” He teased. “It absolutely is!” She insisted. “Perhaps we should agree to disagree.” He smirked. “I guess we should.” She whispered.

Valerie tilted her head up to kiss him then, a sweet, chaste kiss, filled with adoration. Both were smiling when she finally pulled away.

“Look at you,” She cooed with a hand on his jaw. “My handsome Commander. I bet,” She ran a thumb over his lip. “That all the pretty circle mages, and all the sexy templars, and all the cute little girls in Honnleath were absolutely in love with you.” Cullen knew the moment was supposed to be flirtatious, but he couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, no, Maker, no.”

“What do you mean no?” Valerie looked genuinely confused, which only made Cullen laugh harder. “I mean, Andraste, look at you!”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I wasn’t always this dashing, my dear.” He said gently, prompting an exaggerated gasp and a ‘No!’ from the mage. “It’s true, I swear it. You got a dose of my very suave stuttering and blushing and…fidgeting. It’s never worked out all that well before now.”

“Well to be fair,” She started. “I wasn’t much better. Plus, I found it…endearing, let’s say.”

“Glad to be of service.”

“So, then,” Valerie stared down at his chest, head tilted, while tracing maddening little circles with her finger. “So what?” Cullen asked eventually.

“ _Have_ you been with any others then?” She pointedly looked up at him, curious, and most definitely flirtatious.

“Others? Other women you mean?” Cullen asked incredulously. Valerie nodded and hummed her approval.

“I…well…I’m not sure if—hmm.” While he weighed his words, Valerie smiled with the distinct pride that she had once more gotten him to stutter and blush just like he had before they were in a relationship. _If I don’t keep the Inquisition’s Commander humble, then who will_?

“How many do you think there have been?” He turned the question on her. Considering a moment, she answered confidently. “Two.”

“Ah, close, but no. Three.”

“Really now?” Valerie’s eyebrows raised. “Good for you, then. Tell me about them.” The commander exhaled, obviously wishing for a subject change.

“Why do you care anyways?”

“I need to know who to thank. Go on now.” Valerie was staring reverently up at him, and he knew he would never be able to drop the conversation now.

“Okay then, uh…the first was when I was seventeen maybe. I was still in training, and there aren’t, you know, a _ton_ of women that become templars, but there are enough. And obviously the Chantry wanted to keep everyone separate, but with teenagers how well can that really go? Her name was Eva. I’d seen her around occasionally, and our friends had managed to try to get us to meet and talk at every opportunity and ran letters between the two of us. I imagine I was even worse at this than I am now. So eventually, we met in a barn or a storeroom or something and, um, that was that.” Cullen shifted uncomfortably, staring out the hole in his roof. Valerie fought to keep her smile from getting any bigger than it already was.

“Did you get her out of her smalls at least?” She asked.

“What!? Yes, of course I got her out—well, maybe. Probably.”

“Very romantic. And the second?”

“Hey now,” Cullen interceded. “It’s your turn now. Who was your first?”

“Well, Cullen, you have me at quite the disadvantage, seeing as I’ve only been with two other men before. But, in fairness, I will share. I was nineteen, probably closer to twenty, and in the circle, obviously. By that point most of the other mages my age had already been messing around with one another since forever. So, one of the boys I knew—I wouldn’t say we were friends, but we were definitely friendly, and we always tried to outdo one another—we just sort of…decided to one day. And that was that.”

“Maker, Valerie, and you made fun of me for not being romantic.”

“Hey, you know my popularity in the circle wasn’t exactly something to brag about. He…got the job done.” Cullen shook his head and chuckled, carefully preparing his words for whatever question was to come next.

“I believe it is your turn, ser.”

“The second wasn’t until I was stationed in Kirkwall.  Up until then I was, well, busy with other matters. Her name was Maria. She was the daughter of one of the few merchants who set up their wares within the Gallows. I saw her nearly every day, from afar that is, and she was like a breath of fresh air. Very kind, very beautiful. Of course, that meant I wasn’t the only one who vied for her attention.” Cullen paused then, remembering the woman, shorter than Valerie, with dark hair and eyes. She was certainly calmer, and always nice, often daring to bring the templars water on Kirkwall’s hottest days.

Valerie was gazing up at him still, listening in that intent way of hers. Cullen could not understand for the life of him why she would want to hear any of this.

“I saved her from a pickpocket at one point. It sounds like something from a story, I know, but if you’ve been to Kirkwall you know thieves and pickpockets really aren’t anything unusual. After that I suppose we eventually entered into some kind of relationship.”

“Did you love her?” Valerie’s motives, Cullen gathered at that point, were entirely innocent. She was curious. It was her nature. And the question was asked with such honesty, that Cullen knew to answer with anything other than the absolute truth would be unfair.

“I don’t know. I thought I did, for a long time. But now…” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I did not lie when I told you I had never felt anything like this. Whatever I had with her is nothing in comparison to this.” Cullen hoped she could understand how much he meant that. There were plenty of things that haunted him about his past, but Maria had never been one of them. Cullen had figured for a long time that his relationship with her was all love was. It was not a thought he lingered on, or frankly, cared about, up until a certain red-headed mage entered the picture.

Valerie was grinning.  She pressed a quick peck to his lips. “Why did it end?”

“Well, I was still relatively new to the city when the whole thing began. And very…angry. It is hard to recognize that person as myself. I don’t think she was ever fully on board with my beliefs at that point. And so, as I began to climb the ladder, and Meredith began to take an interest in me, she became nothing more than a distraction. A fun one, yes, but if Meredith had ever found out it would not have ended well for me. So I ended it, and that was that.”

Valerie nodded, but did not press for any more, and began to speak.

“The second man was a mage, someone I met while founding the Accord.” Cullen nodded, remembering what she had told him of her activities before the Breach. The Accord had been a moderate group of mages, hoping to reform the circles rather than completely obliterate them.  He had heard of them only occasionally before they were completely wiped out during the Conclave.  “He was funny, smart, with dark hair. Nothing like you. Not serious at all, even when he should have been. Calling whatever we might have had a relationship seems a bit generous, but he took an interest in me. And so we just had a bit of fun with one another. It was…casual, one might say.”

“And what happened to him?”

“A Templar killed him.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be?” Valerie asked. “You are not responsible for the actions of an order you’re not even a part of any more.  And I did not love him.” Cullen swallowed, and did not say anything. He found he loved her very acutely just then. Her tousled hair, her long fingers drawing patterns on his skin, the vindication in her words but the softness of her eyes. It staggered him, sometimes, just how much emotion he could feel for this one person, and he wondered if he had known he could feel this way, not just for another person, but for a mage, if he would have acted any differently before. He suspected his younger self would never had believed it to begin with. Perhaps if he had met her earlier in life, things would be different, he would not have quite so much to atone for. And yet, a nagging feeling in his stomach told him that likely would not have been the case at all, and she would have been another nameless mage for him to treat like an animal.

But there was no changing the past, and no use for imagining what could have been. He had her now, by some miracle. Cullen had become the right man, at just the right time.

Valerie stared up at her Commander, unable to keep from smiling. _So very smart,_ she mused as she watched the cogs in his brain turn, watched as his expression turned from love to doubt and back as he struggled with, and won over, whatever idea had entered his head. He seemed to be winning these battles with himself more and more frequently, lately. It made Valerie proud. Proud that, slowly and with great difficulty, they were both beginning to break the habits of a system they were both so engrained within.

“And the last one?” Valerie whispered.

“Oh,” Cullen had obviously forgotten all about the conversation they had just stopped having.  
“It was just a quick one time thing. I remember her name, but little else.”

“Lovely,” She began to lean in. “That might make her a little harder to track down.”

“I’m sure she won’t mind.” Cullen murmured in the second before her lips met his. And so they kissed for some time, taking breaks to laugh and smile and mutter sweet nothings, pretending they had all the time in the world.

Eventually, when Valerie pulled away, she was breathless and all but drunk off of the man under her. “I have never felt anything like this.” She lilted, taking his face in her hands. “I remember wanting to cry from happiness when you said that.”

“Really? Because I remember being happy after what you said next.”

“And what was that?”

He flipped their positions, leaning over her with a smile he couldn’t have hidden if he’d wanted to.

“‘I love you.’”


End file.
